Grad Student Highlights from Our Ph . D . and MEECON Programs
Note from Hülya Eraslan , Director of Graduate ( PhD ) Studies
The first cohort of students who went through our restructured PhD curriculum were on the job market this year and met with excellent results . Most of them received multiple attractive offers , which is especially impressive given that we are in one of the toughest markets in recent memory . Some have finalized their decisions and are ready for the next exciting stage in their careers , while others are still deciding . A few of them decided to go on the non-academic market and are still in the process of applying for positions .
Among those who have been placed , Rajarshi Bhowal will be joining Nazarbayev University in Astana , Kazakhstan as an assistant professor . He said , “ I truly appreciate the help and support we received from the faculty members and special thanks to Marcie for the effort she has put in during our application process .” Kirill Evdokimov is planning to accept a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University . Igor Hernandez will join the Brattle Group , a Boston-based consulting firm that has hired several of our graduates . Ajinkya Keskar accepted a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at J-PAL South Asia ( the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Institute for Financial Management and Research in New Delhi , India ), after which he will be starting as an assistant professor at SUNY , Binghamton in 2023 . Kelly Neil will be joining the University of Sydney as a lecturer , a position that is equivalent to assistant professor in the United States . She said , “ I have learned such a lot at Rice – in class , from my advisors , from the other students . It has been a lot of hard work , and I ’ ve had a bit of luck , but I am SO happy to have the job that I wanted all along ! Shout out to Peter , Isabelle , Ken , the Economics Department and the Center for Energy Studies .” Andrea Salvati will be joining University College London as a postdoctoral fellow , a top department worldwide in Andrea ’ s research area of labor economics . He is also on the waiting list for an assistant professor position at NYU . Xunjie Zheng accepted an offer from Bates White , an economics consulting firm in Washington DC .
Commenting on the success of our students , placement director Ted Loch-Temzelides , who worked diligently in leading the placement effort , said , “ All of the credit should go to our students ’ dissertation advisers and committee members , and of course to our creative and hard-working students themselves .” Congratulations to them all !
I am also delighted to report that sixth-year Ph . D . student Hira Farooqi has recently been awarded a research grant from the Center for Financial Security ( CFS ) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison , which is part of the Social Security Administration Retirement and Disability Research Consortium . In this project , she and her co-author Dr . Brielle Bryan , Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Rice , will explore the implications of juvenile justice involvement of children on maternal labor market outcomes and financial well-being . Their research aims to shed light on the extent to which child incarceration imposes restrictions on women ’ s economic participation , eventually contributing to gender inequality in access to Social Security benefits , private savings , and the need for SSI in old age . More broadly , Hira ’ s research focuses on the economics of gender and family . She is particularly interested in studying how social norms and institutions shape women ’ s decisions regarding human capital investment , fertility , and family formation .
Note from Peter Hartley , Co-Director of the MEECON Program
Forbes recently profiled MEECON ( Master in Energy Economics ) alumnus Sid Battacharya as one of the “ Top 30 under 30 in Energy .” Sid performed extremely well in his MEECON courses and was a gregarious student , always full of humor and good spirits . He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Adelaide in South Australia . He chose to come to Rice after I met with him and described the program on a visit to Perth in Western Australia . It was clear from that first meeting that Sid was an exceptional person .
After graduating from Rice , Sid cofounded the Data Science and Analytics business in Accenture ’ s energy sector . He later founded and leads the products and services business of the Amazon Web Services division that caters to the energy industry – helping the operators of oil and gas operations , chemical plants , renewable energy projects and even nuclear plant operators .
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